ROOF Blog archive

The number of private homes built across the country has slumped by almost two-thirds according to the latest figures from National House Building Council (NHBC). The three months from November to January this year saw the second largest decrease in the number of applications from builders looking to start new homes. The NHBC has revised its prediction for the number of new home starts for the financial year 2008/09 from 85,000 to 80,000, well under half the number of new homes started in 2007/08. It reiterated calls for more government intervention to increase the number of new starts, and to improve liquidity in the mortgage market.

Communities and Local Government has released statistics on the net supply of housing in England today. In 2007/08 England had 207,500 net additional dwellings, a 4 per cent increase on the previous year and the highest annual level of net housing supply for 30 years. Seven out of nine English regions experienced an increase in the number of net additional dwellings, with only East Midlands and West Midlands experiencing falls. The largest increase was in the North West with 15 per cent more housing.

As many as five million homeowners could be in negative equity by the end of this year if house prices continue to fall research by GfK NOP found. An estimated 3.8 million people either already owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth, or are very close; and a further 1.2 million homeowners are expected to be in negative equity by the end of the year if house prices drop by 10 to 20 per cent. Single people aged 25 to 34, young couples and younger families are most likely to find themselves in negative equity.

Half of all councils across England have axed jobs in the past few months, and seven in 10 expect further redundancies because of the recession. A survey by the Local Government Association found that councils in the south of England were most likely to have to cut back on jobs as authorities were having to make ‘tough decisions’ to balance budgets and keep council tax down. Total council income is projected to fall by £2.5 billion next year, at a time town halls are reporting ‘significant’ uptake in their services.

Meanwhile, local government minister John Healey has announced that councils in England will be forced to publish information on how much their chief executives earn. The minister said that the ‘spiralling’ pay of some council chiefs needed to be countered and the government has decided to legislate. Across the country, around 20 council leaders are believed to earn more than the prime minister.

Housing associations who inherited council housing have been ‘highly successful’ in delivering improvements to tenants, new research by the Joseph Rowntree Association has found. More than one million tenants have switched from local authority to housing association tenancies during the 20 years stock transfers have taken place and the research found that housing associations typically upgraded estates to standards ‘appreciably higher’ than originally promised – almost half implemented upgrades to standards much higher than the English decent homes standards or Scottish or Welsh equivalent, while generating procurement and other efficiency savings which were then ploughed back into unplanned works such as environmental improvements.

The government is entitled to take legal action to recover social security benefits it pays by mistake a judge has ruled. In a test case at the High Court the Child Action Poverty Group (CAPG) argued that government has no power to seek to claw back overpayments where the recipient had done nothing wrong. However the court decided that government is entitled to ask for its money back under common law. Recognising that the decision would have wide-spread implications, the ruling judge gave the CPAG permission to appeal the decision.

Local residents will be given more time to respond to the government’s second eco-town consultation, after housing minister Margaret Beckett extended the deadline for responses. She said: ‘Eco-towns present a superb opportunity to provide more affordable housing… But it is vital we identify the right locations for [them] and I will not support any proposal that our assessment and consultation concludes is unsuitable.’ 

The rise in the number of unsold properties hitting the rental market has pushed rents down by as much as 25 per cent across Britain. Average rents dropped to £795 a month in February, compared with £950 in May last year, equalling an average fall of 16.3 per cent. The number of new properties available for let has increased by 88 per cent during the past year.

Nationwide Building Society figures show that house prices fell by a further 1.8 per cent in February, bringing the average cost of a home back below £150,000. The annual rate of decline hit a new record of 17.6 per cent. Nationwide said it was unlikely that there would be a ‘swift turnaround’ in the housing market this year.

Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, the government-backed lenders, may have to scrap fees levied on homeowners who are behind on their mortgage repayments, following accusations that they are unfair and ‘make a bad situation worse’ for overburdened households. Most lenders charge up to £55 a month after borrowers fall into arrears, and Northern Rock alone collects more than £1 million a month in arrears charges. The Financial Services Authority is reviewing mortgage arrears charges and will report its recommendations in May.

The Treasury has launched a taxpayer-backed asset protection scheme, aimed at cleaning up banks’ balance sheets and encouraging them to lend more. The banks which sign up must bear around 10 per cent of initial losses and agree to increase lending, and the government will guarantee the remaining 90 per cent of the debt. The Royal Bank of Scotland was the first bank to sign up to the scheme – putting in £325 billion of toxic assets – and immediately revealed that it was getting a further £25 billion bail-out from the government, having just confirmed a loss of £24.1 billion last year.

Typical householders have ‘no realistic hope’ of paying off their debts in their lifetime, Citizens Advice said today. People turning to CAB advisers for assistance owed an average of £16,971, an amount that would take 93 years to pay off. The most common reasons for debt were low incomes, over-commitment, illness or disability, and job loss, and more than half had debts of priority bills such as mortgage repayments, rent, council tax or fuel bills. The average debt was two-thirds higher than in 2001.

The Tenant Services Authority is encouraging housing associations to rationalise stock through swaps, transfers, management agreements and partnerships. Estates where a large number of associations own a small number of properties can result in tenants getting poor service, while landlords lack involvement in neighbourhoods, it says. The TSA found that up to 60 associations are present in some local authority areas.

A new study by the Institute of Public Policy Research has found that there is no evidence to suggest that large-scale migration from eastern Europe since 2004 has had a negative impact on wages or unemployment. Figures out this week from the Homes Office found a 47 per cent drop in the number of migrants coming to the UK from eastern Europe at the end of last year as the recession began to bite.

Councils across England are forecast to increase council tax by an average of 3 per cent – the lowest rise for ten years, but still higher than the inflation rate. Councils have predicted their incomes will fall by £2.5 billion because of lower returns from investments and from selling off land while the house market is depressed. Ministers said there was ‘no excuse for excessive rises’, and costs should be cut elsewhere to protect core services.

Councils are facing a funding gap of up to £7 billion this year because of a fall in section 106 contributions. EC Harris consultancy estimated that the fall in anticipated income from ‘planning gain’ deals where developers agree to provide affordable housing in return for planning permission, will get worse. A spokesperson said that as most section 106 contributions were from residential developments, they expect the value would fall below £2 billion for the next few years as fewer schemes get started, and this is likely to force the government to fill the funding gap.

An independent assessment of the Middle Quinton eco-town near Stratford-upon-Avon has concluded it would not be financially viable. Research has found that the six local authorities directly affected by the proposal faced a £373 million deficit and would need ‘massive public subsidy’ to complete the infrastructure needed for the project.

Barratt Developments and Redrow have released their half yearly figures and both showed big losses in revenue. Redrow’s income fell 58 per cent in the last six months of the 2008 to finish the year with a pre-tax profit of £46.2 million it reported yesterday. Meanwhile today Barratt reported a fall of 23.7 per cent in revenue during the second half of the year, bringing it to a pre-tax loss of £592.4 million. Both firms say they had been hit by falling sales and reduced house and land prices.

The Chartered Institute of Housing has called for the government to pump funds into the construction sector to stave off collapse. Following Redrow’s and Barratt’s interim results showing massive losses in revenue, CIH chief executive Sarah Webb said that it had become increasingly clear that support was vital and that the house building industry was in greater need of a government bail-out than car makers or the Post Office.

Public attitudes to the welfare state have hardened during Labour’s decade in power, and even more so among Labour voters, a study by the London School of Economics has found. The study pre-dates the current recession, starting in 1996, just before Tony Blair took power. At the time 48 per cent of voters and 62 per cent of Labour supporters believed that unemployment benefits were too low and causing hardship. By 2006 only 23 per cent adults felt this and among Labour voters this had dropped to 30 per cent.

Some building societies are charging mortgage customers twice as much interest as banks, adding more than £1,000 to the cost of monthly repayments. Building societies say mortgage rates are not being lowered to maintain savers’ levels of return, but research casts doubt on some societies’ claims.

Repossessions among sub-prime borrowers accounted for 30 per cent of all repossessions in the UK during 2008, Fitch Ratings said yesterday. Despite the sector comprising less than 10 per cent of the entire UK mortgage market, approximately 12,200 properties repossessed last year were from so-called sub-prime borrowers, and the numbers gathered pace during the year, with more properties repossessed in the fourth quarter than in each of the previous three quarters.

The Office of Fair Trading today launches its study into the house buying and selling process. It will look at competition between estate agents, mortgage brokers and surveyors and the measures needed to protect consumers.

The government should buy homes from the elderly and allow them to move into sheltered accommodation, a parliamentary select committee has suggested. Money from the national affordable housing programme should go to buy up empty homes and those that are unoccupied and have been on the market for more than a year, the MPs said. The committee also insisted that the government continues to build more affordable homes and stick to its long-term house building targets.

The average starting age for people taking part in equity release schemes has fallen from 74 to 69 years old during the past four years. Increasing energy bills, rising council tax demands and inflation have reduced real income for pensioners, and many see equity release as a way of unlocking money from their property, and supplementing ‘inadequate pension provision’ without having to sell their home or move.

Almost half of middle-class grown children remain financially dependent on their parents into their mid-20s, new research has found. Forty-one per cent of young adults aged between 18 and 25 need help to cover the cost of bills and pay for holidays, or are being charged a reduced rent to stay at the family home.

A surge in demand caused by the credit crisis has meant that a £200 million government scheme to help first-time buyers on to the housing ladder has fully allocated its cash for the financial year. The Open Market HomeBuy scheme which offered loans to first-time buyers to buy on the open market was completely allocated for 2008/09, but a spokesperson from the Homes and Communities Agency confirmed that more money would be available for 2009/10 in April, and those on waiting lists would be informed.

Local government minister John Healy confirmed today that 360 councils will receive a share of £100 million to be used ‘as they see fit’ to meet local priorities. The money is coming from a scheme that rewards councils for successfully promoting economic growth in their area.

According to the Tenant Services Authority, housing associations are well placed to tackle long-term shortage in affordable housing. The TSA said that while not immune from the current economic downturn, the housing association sector continued to enjoy strong access to finance, with £5 billion of the £5.3 billion needed for the next 12 months already in place.

Services for council tenants could deteriorate as the recession continues, a Housing Quality Network study into housing management has warned. The report found that disrepair was the main reason for council housing being classed non-decent, with three-quarters of non-decent homes still in need of major repairs. Arms length management organisations (ALMOs) consistently offered a better service to residents than councils, however, and rent arrears had fallen from 2.4 per cent to 2.2 per cent.

The number of mortgages approved for house purchases rose slightly in January, but the level of lending continued to fall, figures from the British Bankers’ Association showed. The number of mortgages approved during January was at the highest level for four months, but in year-on-year figures there was a 43 per cent drop. Meanwhile net lending dropped to the second lowest level since April 2001, nearly half the level in January 2008.

A group of Labour MPs has urged Gordon Brown to spend an extra £20 billion to stimulate the economy by boosting the housing market. Progress, an independent group of Labour Party members and trade unionists, has called for a freeze on stamp duty for houses valued under £1 million for the rest of 2009, a cut in capital gains tax from 18 to 10 per cent, an increase of £10 in jobseekers allowance, and to offer a £1,000 tax credit to house buyers.

The government has been urged to build the country out of a recession with a major programme of house construction. The 2020 Group is made up of representatives from Shelter, National Housing Federation, the Local Government Association and Trades Union Congress and is chaired by Bank of England official and former Brown adviser Kate Barker. The group says there is an urgent need to build 100,000 affordable homes to rent and that the move would save construction jobs, and meet an ‘urgent’ demand to house the five million people expected on housing waiting lists in England by the end of next year.

There has been a ‘steep rise’ in the number of tenants evicted after landlords have defaulted on their mortgage, Shelter warned. Ministers have to ‘act quickly to give tenants far, far longer’ as some tenants can get just a few days’ notice to leave their homes. Around three million homes in England and Wales are rented from private landlords. The government is considering a major overhaul of the sector, although it has not yet said when it would happen.

Leeds council has announced it will build new houses in the city for the first time in 20 years, as council leaders declare affordable housing to be a top priority. The council is seeking tenders to build almost 80 properties across three sites, 27 of which will be council homes. Leeds has only 57,000 council homes left, down from a peak of 96,000 in 1980.

Planning applications to local councils have dropped by an average of almost 19 per cent, causing a drop in income averaging 16.3 per cent across England. The amounts ranged from a 50 per cent fall in income in Cambridge to a 27 per cent increase in Kerrier. Councils believe the overall fall is the result of the credit crunch and recent changes to the planning rules which allow more work to be done without planning permission.

Speaking to the Observer, Gordon Brown said the Financial Services Authority (FSA) would consider controls on mortgage of more than 100 per cent of a home’s value, and on high multiple mortgages, offering loans of up to six times an applicant’s salary. He said more caution in the mortgage market would reduce chances of a future property crash: ‘We do want to see the reinvention of the traditional savings and mortgage bank in Britain for loans to be made on prudent and careful terms’.

The government has confirmed that Northern Rock will revive its mortgage lending, with new loans worth up to £14 billion becoming available by 2011. The loans will be financed by money from new deposits, repayments of existing loans, and more government money, as part of a wider move to restructure the nationalised lender. The bank says it will offer ‘responsible’ loans for first-time buyers and customers who are remortgaging. A spokesperson said that mortgage would be lent at up to 90 per cent of the value of the property being bought.

Homeowners who bought properties from a Hampshire developer have complained that they are living on a ‘glorified housing estate’ and are considering suing after 20 units were sold to social landlords. They say they were told the development would include 15 per cent affordable housing, but that this has increased to between 30 and 50 per cent with the recent deal between Bellway, the builders and Kingfisher housing association.

More than 60,000 homeowners are being forced to sell up each year to pay for a place in a care home, Counsel and Care reports. It says that as many as many as half of those needing care were being forced to pay the £500 a week costs from their own pocket. Anyone with savings or property worth more than £22,250 must pay their own bills, and councils have legal powers to force those in care homes to sell their houses to meet the fees. The cost of care for the elderly last year was £12 billion.

The European parliament has voted to allow VAT on housing repairs and maintenance to be cut to at least 5 per cent. MEPs hope that member states will introduce the cuts to revitalise struggling industries such as construction and increase work to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.

The number of homes in the UK repossessed by lenders last year rose by 54 per cent to 40,000 according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). This figure is fewer than the 45,000 originally predicted, however the number of homeowners in arrears soared by 70 per cent over the same period. The CML has forecast that 500,000 people could fall behind by three months of more on their mortgage repayments this year, while up to 75,000 could lose their homes.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice has released its fourth quarter statistics on mortgage and landlord possession actions. It found that mortgage possession claims were 29 per cent lower year-on-year, but possession orders were 14 per cent higher than the last quarter of 2007. Landlord possession claims were 3 per cent lower year-on-year, while possession orders were 2 per cent lower. The mortgage pre-action protocol was introduced during this period.

The government is to announce up to £500 million to help struggling homeowners keep their homes. It is expected that the homeowners mortgage support scheme will allow borrowers with mortgages up to £400,000 to take a payment holiday if they suffer an ‘income shock’. It will also allow borrowers to defer payment on up to 70 per cent of their mortgage interest for up to two years, with the government guaranteeing 80 per cent of the deferred payment if the borrowers fail to cover their repayments and lose their homes.

Figures out today also reveal that the number of housing starts is down 40 per cent on the government’s target of 240,000 new homes to be built annually until 2016. Starts fell to a 30-year low with only 105,000 registered for the year – down 37 per cent on 2007 and 43 per cent from their 2005/06 peak. The number of new homes started between October and December (16,300) was the lowest since 1980, down 27 per cent on the previous quarter and 58 per cent in year-on-year figures.

The Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB, the two banks bailed out by the government, will add between £1 trillion and £1.5 trillion to the public debt – the equivalent of between 70 and 100 per cent of gross domestic product, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has warned. The ONS said it had decided to classify the banks as public entities from 13 October 2008, and analysts believe that the government will probably have to revise up its borrowing forecasts in April’s budget.

Low interest rates have boosted the investment appeal of buy to let, with agents reporting renewed interest in the sector. According to a recent survey conducted by the Association of Residential Lettings (ARLA), 75 per cent of agents reported a rental yield of 4 per cent of more, with the majority reporting a return of between 4 and 5 per cent – much higher than savings accounts.

Londoners’ confidence in the property market has bounced back according to research from Rightmove. A majority of people living in the capital – 59 per cent – say that now is a good time to buy, and more than half expect to purchase a home to live in this year, with 12 per cent planning to buy an investment property. Nationally, around 50 per cent of people expect to buy a property during 2009, although seven in 10 predict further price falls.

The government should consider imposing caps on the amount mortgage companies can lend to homebuyers, the deputy governor of the Bank of England has suggested. Sir John Gieve, who is stepping down at the end of the month, said that in theory, a ceiling on loan-to-income and loan-to-value ratios could have provided an effective brake on the excesses of the last housing boom. He also acknowledged that the bank could have set interest rates more appropriately in the decade before the credit crisis began.

Asylum seekers are facing destitution because of a shortage of accommodation. Refugee Action says that failed asylum seekers who are unable to return to their country of origin should be offered section 4 support to help with housing, but delays and a lack of accommodation has meant that people are being offered somewhere to stay outside the region they live in, which is against government guidelines.

Hopes of a revival in mortgage lending are unrealistic, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). New figures on mortgage lending for January show that lending fell by 8 per cent from December 2008, a 52 per cent decline in year-on-year figures. CML said that the mortgage market remained ‘very weak’ as home loans remain hard to obtain. It has also forecast a 200 per cent rise in homeowners falling into mortgage arrears this year, taking the figure to more than half a million homeowners.

A fifth of households are struggling or falling behind on their mortgage repayments, according to research by Shelter. In a survey of sub-prime borrowers, 5 per cent expect to be repossessed in the next six months, with more than 36 per cent saying they would be unable to meet mortgage payments in full if their income dropped significantly.

Coventry building society has become the first lender to offer re-mortgage deals worth 100 per cent of a property’s value to customers in negative equity. Customers who took out loans of up to 125 per cent who are coming to an end of their mortgage deal can now get a five-year fixed rate deal worth 100 per cent of a property’s loan-to-value, with no booking or arrangement fees.

The recession is creating a ‘lost generation’ of young people who may never escape the trap of long-term unemployment, the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned. An investigation by the LGA found that a quarter of those made redundant between October and December were young people aged 18–24. At the other end of the scale a quarter of redundancies were men over 50. The LGA is calling for these vulnerable groups to receive urgent help in employment and training.

The government is to unveil a new report aimed at keeping down council tax rises today, and it is expected to advocate the creation of a new website giving the best deals and prices on billions of pounds worth of goods and services purchased by councils each year. Local government minister John Healey said the new measure could save the average council tax payer £90.

The credit crisis has had a significant impact on pay in the housing sector – as housing association employees pay rises for 2009 are being cut by an average of almost 30 per cent. A survey questioned 90 housing associations, representing a cross section of different sized associations, and found that the average predicted pay rise is 2.6 per cent, down from 3.8 per cent in November 2008.

The Liberal Democrats launched plans today to increase the supply of social housing, stem the number of repossessions, and rescue the construction industry. They want to introduce a ‘repair and renewal’ loan scheme for owners of empty properties if they agree to lease them for at least five years to a housing association, and would allow commercial building temporarily being used for housing to claim a property relief rate. They also want housing associations and local authorities to use the Homes and Communities Agency funds to improve newly purchased unsold housing stock.

The House of Lords has ruled that social landlords to not have a duty of care to their tenants, after an elderly man was murdered by his neighbour. The man’s family took the case to the Lords in an attempt to prove that Glasgow council should have done more to protect the man, who was attacked after complaining to the council about the defendant’s behaviour. The Lords ruled that the council did not have a duty of care in such circumstances because relationship between the council and the tenant wasn’t close.

The National Trust, the UK’s largest private landowner is creating up to 1,000 new allotments or community gardens during the next three years. The plots will be available in around 40 locations near National Trust properties. The trust plans to encourage schools, community groups and charities to make use of the new sites which could provide up to 2.6 million lettuces a year, 50,000 sacks of potatoes, or mixed produce worth up to £1.5 million.

Quelle surprise – the sale of a luxurious belle époque villa on the French Riviera, valued at £440 million, has fallen through after its buyer, Russia’s richest man Mikhail Prokhorov, saw his fortune slump by a third. He had already paid a deposit of around £39 million.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that an extra £2.4 billion a year will need to be spent on tax credits if the government is to meet its target of halving child poverty. JFR says that 2.3 million children will be in poverty in 2010, missing the 1.7 million target set in 1999. The JRF also says that there has been a sharp increase in the number of children living in poverty who have at least one parent in work, suggesting that the recession could push many further below the poverty line because of increased unemployment.

The Children’s Society has found that children and young people feel personally affected by the financial and emotional consequences of the recession. One in five children aged 11–13 said they were worried about what they saw on the news, rising to 28 per cent of young people aged 17–19. Girls appear to be more sensitive about how the news is affecting their parents with around 40 per cent of girls and young women saying their parents were concerned about the situation, compared with 30 per cent of boys and young men.

A property recovery company has estimated that the number of homes being repossessed by the end of the year could be as high as 82,000. PPR reported more than 2,900 enquiries by distressed sellers in the fourth quarter of 2008, which suggests that the number of mortgage possessions will be higher than predicted in 2009. The Council of Mortgage Lenders predicts 75,000 repossessions for the year.

Buy-to-let investors will not be able to cope with demand unless they are able to access government support, the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA) has said. After surveying 506 mortgage brokers, the IMLA found that 80 per cent of first-time buyers were unable to secure a mortgage and were choosing to rent instead. It argues that the government should support buy-to-let lenders so the rental market can make up for the ‘downward trend’ in home ownership.

House price falls have made it cheaper for first-time buyers with deposits of upwards of £25,000 to buy a home than rent one on most parts of the UK. According to research by Abbey National, London and East Anglia are the only regions where renting is cheaper than buying for people with a 25 per cent deposit. The North offers the biggest savings to buyers, followed by Wales. However, with a 15 per cent deposit, renting a home is cheaper than buying one throughout all regions of the UK.

The Court of Appeal has decided that failure to follow informal advice to go to a local housing authority’s homeless person unit when threatened with eviction did not make an applicant intentionally homeless. The judges said that the claimant’s failure to go to the homeless persons unit could be seen as foolish or imprudent, but it wasn’t enough to regard the claimant as intentionally homeless.

A zero carbon eco-house has been built based on design from the Middle Ages. The framework uses timbrel vaulting, a medieval technique from 14th century Spain, that creates a lightweight curved roof which retains heat. The roof has been covered with earth and plants, to maintain the inside temperature. Modern technologies, such as solar panels and triple glazing complete the design. The house comes at a price, though – it took a year to build and cost the owner £800,000.

Property prices in the UK fell by 10.2 per cent in 2008, with a 2.3 per cent fall in December alone, Communities and Local Government figures indicate. The steepest drop was in Northern Ireland – down 17.9 per cent – while in England they were down by 10.4 per cent and in Wales by 10.3 per cent. Only Scotland saw a single digit drop – a fall of 6 per cent.

There are positive signs, however. In February, the number of buyers increased for the third month in a row, while January saw the first month-on-month increase in house prices for almost a year, according to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. RICS said that the majority of new buyers are existing homeowners who are upgrading to larger properties, and there is little interest in new build properties. It is not convinced this represents a permanent change in the market.

In an article in today’s Guardian, David Cameron outlined a series of measures on the reform of local government. He says the Tories would hold referendums in the 12 largest cities outside London, including Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester and Newcastle, to allow voters to decide on directly elected mayors; give local people the power to veto high councils tax rises; and create an incentive for local authorities to build more housing by allowing them to keep a greater proportion of tax receipts from new homes.

The Office of National Statistics has revealed the January inflation rate is at its lowest level since April 2008, down to 3 per cent, from 3.1 per cent in December. The drop follows record falls of 15.2 per cent in fuel prices. The retail price index, which includes mortgage costs, was at the lowest level since March 1960 after the recent interest rate cuts. It was 0.1 per cent in January, down from 0.89 per cent in December, and is expected to enter negative territory, effecting pensions and wages.

Nearly 40,000 mortgages worth more than ten times the borrower’s salary were agreed at the height of the property boom. This accounted for just under 4 per cent of all mortgages. The majority of loans were on homes worth six times salary or less, although the figures, which came from Council of Mortgage Lenders data, show that the average ratio was 3.16 per cent.

The tenancy deposit scheme (TDS) has published figures for disputes involving return of deposits. The majority, 52 per cent, sent to the TDS involved cleaning, with almost half – 45 per cent – from disputes about damage. The amounts averaged about half of the total deposit, which stood at an average of £1,079. Since its introduction in April 2008, the TDS covers more than 768,000 tenancies, has resolved more than 3,500 disputes and is safeguarding £757 million in deposits.

Banks have warned Gordon Brown that the £1 billion scheme to underwrite mortgage holidays for cash-strapped homeowners could result in a wave of lawsuits if house prices continue to fall. Homeowners will have to make higher payments once the holiday ends, or face negative equity, leading to fears that banks could be sued by homeowners whose properties had plummeted in value. Treasury officials believe that such fears can be allayed by legal warnings and an insistence that anyone taking up the scheme must take independent advice.

The scale of the mortgage fraud committed during the housing boom has been shown in a report out by KPMG. In 2008, courts dealt with fraud cases worth £36 million, compared with £3.7 million in 2007. Easy credit, and the growth of self-certification mortgages contributed to the high level of fraud, the report argues. However it also warns that most fraud committed since the credit crisis began has yet to reach the courts, and the scale of the problem is likely to increase.

A surge of new homebuyer enquiries is keeping estate agents busy, but not translating into sales, show new figures from rightmove out today. There has been a 108 per cent annual increase in the number of enquiries from new buyers in 2008, but with access to credit still restricted this has not yet turned to an increase in sales. Average prices in February are up 1.2 per cent from January, but rightmove says that only properties priced at around 25 per cent below their 2007 peak were selling.

The Conservatives have unveiled a plan to tackle social housing waiting lists by bringing empty homes back into use. Tory leader David Cameron pledged to make it easier for social landlords to use empty properties to house homeless families. Plans include ‘partially’ suspending the design and quality standard requirements while social tenants renting the homes would be given short-term tenancy agreements of between three and five years with an option to buy to enter into shared equity deals. There are an estimated one million empty homes across the UK.

Meanwhile the new homes marketing agency has warned that there will be a shortfall of more than a million homes and prices will spiral again once mortgage finance becomes widely available, because demand will outstrip supply. Chair of the organisation David Pretty believes that house prices will rise to 2007 levels within five years.

Britain’s biggest banks came under fire for raising mortgage rates on Friday, just weeks after the Bank of England base rate dropped to 1.5 per cent, after promising MPs they would try to boost lending. Barclays, which recently announced a profit of more than £1 billion in the past year, has been singled out by moneyfacts as the worst offender. It has reduced rates paid to savers more than any other high street bank, while it has the highest standard variable rate and has failed to pass on every second bank rate cut to customers.

Banks have been accused of leaving mortgage holders unable to pay their mortgages, as they take money out customers’ current accounts to cover credit card and loan payments. Citizens Advice says there has been a 25 per cent rise in cases in the previous two years, and is calling on banks to scrap the practice allowing them to transfer funds without permission. The British Bankers Association said it was up to the customer to talk to their bank if they are in difficulty.

Nearly a third of councils in the east of England have reported an increase in homelessness in the past year. Councils in Norfolk, Bedfordshire and the London commuter belt were likely to see an increased number of homeless people and a rise in enquiries about joining housing lists due to increasing repossessions because of mortgage arrears. However, 12 per cent of local authorities had seen homelessness numbers decreasing and 52 per cent has not seen a change in numbers.

Councils across England are facing a huge drop in cash as right-to-buy sales fail. A snapshot across 10 councils has revealed that receipts from right to buy fell 89 per cent in the last year, from 380 homes in the third quarter of 07/08 to 40 for the same period in 08/09. The implication for councils is a ‘significant’ drop in income as less right to buy numbers means less money to maintain the housing stock – and more properties to maintain.

Orders for private homes suffered their greatest slump in more than 50 years, figures from the Office of National Statistics show. The number of orders has dropped 43 per cent in 2008, with the decline accelerating in the final three months of the year to a 57 per cent fall from the same period last year. The data showed that public and housing association orders have also dropped by 28 per cent in year on year figures.

Treasury plans to let the Financial Services Authority (FSA)  regulate the sale and rent back sector could save consumers up to £1.4 billion over a 10-year period. Regulation could offer consumers considerable savings because the prices some sale and rent back firms offer are ‘significantly below what would be offered in a functioning market.’ Anecdotal evidence indicates that some firms are buying homes for less than 50 per cent of their market value.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched a consultation today on draft guidance for businesses engaged in second charge lending. The draft guidance sets out the standard of behaviour the OFT expects from businesses engaged in second charge lending and covers issues such as customer care, advertising and selling techniques, and practices around managing arrears or defaults. Second charge lending allows existing mortgage holders to borrow money by securing the loan against their home.

Following yesterday’s Homeless Link report into rough sleeping in London, the mayor Boris Johnson has pledged to end street homelessness by 2012. There has been a decline in the number of rough sleepers throughout the country, but London is the only region that has failed to meet the government’s 1998 commitment to reduce numbers by two-thirds. Half the country’s street homeless people live in London.

The UK’s leading arms length management organisations (ALMOs) are meeting to discuss the most effective way of progressing towards the 2012 deadline for all homes to meet the decent homes standard. ALMOs are said to be under increasing pressure from the government to become more innovative in establishing best cost prices, market competitiveness and in establishing value for money for their tenants and local authority landlords.

An increasing number of tenants are choosing the ‘right to manage’ the property they live in, but solicitors involved warn that the time and expense of taking over a building can cause large financial and legal headaches. Right to manage was introduced in 2002 to protect tenants against exploitation by landlords. However some legal firms are arguing that many tenants are abusing their rights by not undertaking regular safety repairs and checks, in order to save money, while management can be chosen by majority rule, effectively ignoring the wishes of the other tenants.

The plans for the new independent National Tenants Voice, which will give tenants a say on the housing issues affecting them, have been accepted by the government. Communities minister Iain Wright said that the body will give tenants a real opportunity to have their views heard at the national level.

The credit crunch is hitting home and décor magazines hard, as circulation for 19 out of 24 titles falling in the second half of 2008. Total circulation for the home interest sector was down 6.3 per cent in year on year figures, with one title BBC Good Homes down 23.2 per cent from 2007.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders has said that although it had not yet finalised its figures it believes that the number of properties taken into possession last year will not exceed 45,000. It said that actions already taken by lenders and borrowers were resulting in fewer possessions than anticipated. The figures are due for release on 20 February. Meanwhile the number of mortgages lent to house buyers last year fell to its lowest level since 1974. Just 516,000 mortgages were granted to buyers, down 49 per cent from 2007.

Following Tuesday’s questioning of bank chiefs by a Treasury select committee, Sir James Crosby has resigned as deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority. His departure follows criticism over his time as chief executive of HBOS. He resigned from HBOS in 2006.  The bank was bailed out by the government and sold to Lloyds last October. The FSA yesterday announced that it raised concerns about the way HBOS was managed as long ago as 2002. Gordon Brown is being questioned today about the government’s bailout.

The London mayor says there is now a ‘clear vision’ for the use of London’s Olympic site after the 2012 games. As the plans were launched Tuesday by Boris Johnson, Tessa Jowell and Hazel Blears, Mr Johnson said plans for the long-term use of the London site will deliver a lasting legacy in areas of transport, new infrastructure and world class facilities including a sports academy, a school, elite training centre, and up to 10,000 houses.

Leicestershire county council has voted to object to plans for the proposed 15,000-home Pennbury eco-town. The authority met on Tuesday and decided to object to the plans on the ground it has major concerns about transport and the economy. The councils said it believed Pennbury was in the ‘wrong location’ – thought to be too close to neighbouring towns, and there were concerns about how much a proposed tram link would cost.

Meanwhile a petition calling for new eco-standards to be applied across the house building industry has been given to 10 Downing Street. The petition was organised by the National Housing Federation and has the backing of 200 housing associations from across the country and demands private developers are compelled to build new homes to the same tough environmental standards as the social housing sector.

A coalition of organisations in the construction industry has called for the suspension of section 106 agreements to help the sector survive the recession. The group wants a s.106 holiday, and then a cap on the value of such agreements; it wants targets for all local authorities to fast track the planning process to release and designate land for social housing; and wants to develop a ‘coherent strategy’ to deal with existing housing stock to make them more energy efficient.

The Empty Homes Agency (EHA) has reacted with dismay to the latest government figures showing the largest annual jump in empty homes in 17 years. There were just under 700,000 such properties in England last year and the EHA believe this will rise to more than one million this year. The EHA has called on the government and Homes and Communities Agency to redirect investment intended to build new homes, towards the purchase and repair of empty and run-down private homes. It also wants them to provide small grants to enable housing associations and co-operatives to operate short life housing schemes.

Research from Homeless Link has shown an increasing number of people sleeping rough on the streets of London are coming from central or eastern Europe. The proportion of those from the eight accession countries sleeping rough has increased from 18 per cent in December 2007 to 25 per cent now. Analysis shows that while the number of rough sleepers has reduced in inner-city boroughs numbers have increased in some outer London areas.

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has announced it is to play a leading role in promoting good practice and equality on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) issues in the housing sector. During the next 12 months, CIH will be looking at ways in which it can meet the needs of LGBT members and to raise awareness of the housing challenges the estimated 3.6 million people in the UK. CIH has already produced good practice guidance on seven areas of diversity.